For many police departments, the transition to community problem-oriented policing has transformed the way the police departments conduct business. The community policing paradigm emphasizes problem-solving as the basic unit of work. Police officers accomplish problem-solving goals by developing strong linkages with residents, for-profit firms, non-profit agencies, and corollary government units to provide a variety of services to the community. The foundation of these problem-solving partnerships is effective and timely communication between police and all segments of the community. As police departments become immersed in the problem-solving philosophy, the necessity for early problem identification becomes critical. Problem-solving can occur only after a particular crime or disorderly incident is recognized. Early recognition of potential problems is imperative to problem resolution. However, depending on the nature of the problem, it may take police and citizens a significant amount of time to recognize that several events are really a festering problem. Unfortunately, by the time that the recognition has occurred, the problem may well have reached a level where it takes extensive effort and time to reverse a critical situation which may literally have been years in the making. It is believed by many that if community policing is to succeed in making a lasting difference, and if police departments are to continue to rely on a problem-solving paradigm, that the dissemination of information and problem-solving activities must become more proactive so that crime and disorder can be addressed in its early stages.
For many agencies, early detection is the greatest obstacle to effective problem-solving activities. Generally, the earlier the potential problem is identified, the easier it is to alleviate. Once an entire neighborhood is consumed, the more difficult it is to eradicate the problem. For example, in an ideal case, police officers would recognize and take corrective actions after a third incident of house breaking instead of after receiving notification in a monthly report that fifteen incidences have occurred. Therefore, early pattern identification may help provide for increases in the probability of problem resolution through early intervention.
For many police departments, limited use of information as a strategic resource is one of the greatest impediments to early problem identification and remediation. Current information resources, such as computers and automated databases, often times do not have the needed capability to get the right information to the right people in a timely manner. Lack of adequate technology resources can thwart the methods of analyzing and addressing a problem before it threatens a citizen's safety or contributes to neighborhood disintegration. When there is technology such as database search engines that can provide officers with searchable information, the burden of searching the database on an ongoing basis for crime patterns currently falls on the police officer. In such cases, the police officers must routinely search through the databases to determine if specific events have occurred which could lead to a potential problem.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,510,978 to Colgan describes a computerized community policing system which provides search capabilities that enable police officers to identify prior crime reports or other data that matches a desired crime profile. In general, the police officer can query a database to identify prior reports which include one or more key words identified by a police officer. However, the computerized police system described in the Colgan patent appears to require police officers to take the initiative to repeatedly query the database as to whether any newly added crime report matches the desired crime profile. Since police officers are already generally overburdened, it is unlikely that police officers will check the database on a frequent basis. As a result of the likely delay between the time that a crime report is entered into the database and the time that a police officer checks the database for the desired crime profile, the information contained by the crime report may become stale, and therefore, significantly less useful.
Thus, an unsatisfied need exists in the industry for a computer-based system for monitoring police records in a manner which reduces the burden upon police officers to repeatedly check the database while, at the same time, notifying one or more police officers of crime reports that match a desired crime profile in a timely fashion.